I am so proud of my girls. Each of them spent their own money, that they had earned, to buy each other gifts this Christmas. They spent almost all they saved to buy these gifts. And it was their idea! It’s times like these that give me hope that I am not totally ruining them. Giving hearts were not only my girls gift to each other, but to me also 
.
My girls love to throw parties in the evenings for the family. They plan during the day, set their room up, & send out invitations. Then after dinner we have a party! P found this invitation on the Crayola web sight, which gave her the idea for a Christmas party:
( the RSVP is a fake #)
P printed this off the Crayola sight also, and came up with the game “pin the ornaments on the Christmas tree”:
R made a Christmas tree & angel, and they both set this little scene up:
They sang one of the songs that they are learning in Choral group for the Christmas production; including their duet of “Away in a Manger” (there is something about siblings singing together 
). R read the Christmas Story to us. They ended the evening by putting on a Christmas puppet show. We had a jolly good time!
There was a discussion on a homeschool forum this week about Charlotte Mason’s dislike of unit studies. It got me thinking. Unit studies can be great fun for the teacher (finding ways to connect all the subjects into one core topic, yippee!). Children do tend to have fun doing things this way also. However, is fun the objective or is real learning the objective? When I see my girls get their own ideas and implement them, without any interference from me; I can’t help but think that it is better for them to make the connections themselves. They are putting their thoughts, their passion into the topic. They are doing all the work, and planning. They are not simply along for the ride. I’m not taking them step by step, project by project connecting all the dots for them. There is nothing wrong with projects or connecting subjects as long as it’s not forced and makes sense, or is just for fun. I think I’ll be focusing more on stimulating the ideas, and let them grow those ideas in their own play and creativity. No more silly projects that are nothing more than busy work here.
I know that the girls did not get this party idea form something we were studying. However, they often do come up with amazingly creative ideas from things we’ve studied. This party just reminded me of some of them. See how our minds are always making connections .
My girls amaze me on a daily basis. I walked past the play room and heard P talking about God, His love for us, and how we need to obey Him. They were having church. They had set up the Legos as pews and a pulpit. Their dolls, a horse, and even Lighting Mcqueen were the congregation.
Here is P preaching and R praying (P is naturally the teacher, and R loves to pray, she’s our prayer warrior):
They sang Jesus Loves Me, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and Amazing Grace. Gods grace truly is amazing when you see His truths growing in your little ones. I see and hear little things like this from my girls all the time. It is such an encouragement to know that, through all my mess ups God is still faithful to work in the hearts of my children.